THE BIRDS OF NORTH CACBAR. 5 



The nests average in size about 4*6" X 1*8" externally, and about 

 3'8" X 1*2" or less internally. 



They are generally, but not always, placed at a considerable height 

 from the ground, and the site selected by the birds is usually a fork, 

 either upright or horizontal, towards the summit or outermost branches 

 of the tree. It seems always to be very strongly attached to the sup- 

 porting twigs, these often being entirely covered in with the materials 

 or, at other times, very firmly wound round and about with the 

 tenacious yellow webs of the large black and yellow spider. 



The eggs, as far as I have as yet been able to ascertain, are of two 

 types — firstly, pinkish in ground-colour with rather numerous spots 

 and blotches of red and reddish-brown. These spots are nearly always 

 confined principally to the larger end, where they sometimes form a 

 ring or undefined cap. In the second type the ground-colour varies 

 from white to extremely pale cream, and the markings consist of 

 blotches of deep purply-brown and others of the same colour, but 

 much paler, looking as if they had been half washed out. In all my 

 eggs of this type the blotches form a scattered ring about the 

 larger half. 



The full number of eggs appears to be three. I have only taken 

 two nests with four eggs, and in several of these, which contained three 

 only, there were distinct signs of incubation having commenced. 

 Twenty-six eggs vary in length from "93" to *98" and in breadth from 

 •7" to *74", the average being "96" by "72". AH my nests containing 

 eggs have been taken between the 12th April and 30th May. I have 

 only found it breeding between three and five thousand five hundred 

 feet, but it is common in the cold weather at much lower elevations and 

 extends into the plains of Cachar, etc, I know nothing in its habits 

 different from those of the common drongos. Its note is extremely soft 

 and sweet, and its song the same. 



(131) Chaptia aenea.-— The Bronzed Drongo. 



Oates, No. 334 ; Hume, No. 282. 

 The nest is a small, very neat cup; outwardly the principal materials 

 are short, broad pieces of grass, bamboo leaves, and shreds of tan- 

 coloured bark ; these are bound together with a strip of the same bark 

 and secured with masses of cobweb and lichen ; the interior is generally 

 made of the ends of fine flowering grasses from which the seeds have 



